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Kerri-Anne broadcasts ailing husband’s battle

Kerri-Anne Kennerley has tearfully revealed the details of a tragic accident suffered by her husband, and while sympathy flowed for the couple, many viewers also questioned the lavish attention paid to the pair while similar battles were being fought by countless everyday Australians.

Speaking on Sunday Night to host and long-time friend Mike Willesee, Kennerley grew increasingly emotional as she detailed her husband John’s struggle to stay alive.

“He said, ‘the only reason I’m trying is for you’. Wow,” Kerri-Anne revealed while recounting the horror accident that landed her 76-year-old spouse of 31 years in intensive care.

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John was paralysed when he fractured a vertebrae in his neck during a fall at a golf club in New South Wales in March.

Since then, Kerri-Anne has been by his side, revealing that she often wakes up thinking the accident was a shocking nightmare.

Some criticised the interview, filmed next to John’s hospital bed where he remains on a ventilator, as invasive and an attempt to cash in on one man’s misfortune.

Posting to the show’s Facebook page, the father of a terminally ill boy wrote: “Every day I have to make the hard decision to go to work so I can pay bills, rent, car payments or spend time with my terminal ill 14 month old son … Every month we are back in public hospital … My family does not have millions own a home or nothing but we survive … So do many others we see when we are in hospital.”

Others called on Kennerley to donate the fee she reportedly received for the interview:

kerri anne kennerley tweet

Other users leapt to the couple’s defence, however, saying fame is not a factor. It’s compassion that counts.

“Money or celebrity status shouldn’t come into ones [sic] thoughts when having compassion for another,” said another Facebook commenter.

Seven pitched the interview as an “emotion-charged Sunday Night special” that sees Kerri-Anne “summon every ounce of her strength and resourcefulness to be the rock for John in his time of need”.

Part of this resourcefulness involves selling her story to Seven, which has been her home network since 2012.

Kerri-Anne and John Kennerley

Kerri-Anne and John Kennerley at the Logies in 2007. Photo: Getty

While Sydney Morning Herald columnist Andrew Hornery reported Kerri-Anne was paid up to $350,000 for the exclusive interview, television blog Decider TV said Seven sources claimed the actual fee would be “significantly less”.

While purists often argue the notion of a “paid exclusive” removes the integrity of the interview, audiences were more concerned with the interview’s intrusiveness.

Cameramen were given access to the intensive care unit of Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital, a ward which houses patients who have endured neurological damage, trauma and burns, as well as those on life support.

Only able to communicate via blinking and an alphabet board, John’s prognosis is not good.

At one point in the interview, Kerri-Anne encouraged him to “slow your breath down, slow it down … a bit more regular, okay?” as a monitor beeps in the background.

While the presence of cameras and Willesee in such a confronting situation is jarring, it perhaps makes perfect sense to a woman who has spent the better part of her life on camera.

Kerri-Anne has been on camera since the age of 13, when she appeared on kids’ shows The Channel Niners and Everybody’s In.

Since then, she’s documented her life, from weight losses and gains to her shock breast cancer diagnosis in 2013, in the media with startling honesty.

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